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Ubuntu, Kubuntu, & Xubuntu Benchmarks

02-22-2007, 06:52 PM

PART 1

With Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu each deploying a different desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, and Xfce respectively), how do each of these distributions compare performance-wise? We have taken two systems -- one with dual Intel Clovertown processors and the other an AMD Sempron -- and tested out each of these distributions in some of our commonly used Linux benchmarks to see how the performance truly stacks up. In this article we will be presenting part one of our results.

Interesting. From my personal experience with the 2, I actually found Kubuntu to be "snappier" than Xubuntu on this crappy 800 MHz Celeron. I'll see if there's any noticeable difference once I get my Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz PC.

Comment

Can you explain the limited benchmarking in the article, also can you try running superPI, my sempron 32bit 3100+ from 03' can do better that that, and ubuntu is a resource hog of the linux distro's i've run (slightly higher than the knoppix, and gnome desktops i've run.

still compared to windows, those times are good for that hardware.

Comment

Can you explain the limited benchmarking in the article, also can you try running superPI, my sempron 32bit 3100+ from 03' can do better that that, and ubuntu is a resource hog of the linux distro's i've run (slightly higher than the knoppix, and gnome desktops i've run.

still compared to windows, those times are good for that hardware.

Welcome to the forums.

SuperPI is generally not used by Phoronix. This article is just Part 1 where we focused on compiling/encoding. The second part will focus upon gaming and other areas.

Comment

Are there any other underlying differences between kubuntu, ubuntu, and xubuntu other than window manager? If there aren't you might as well just say this is a performance comparison between the three window managers, not distros.

From the first set of benchmarks there doesn't seem to be any gaping performance differences between any of the distros which would warrant using one over another solely based upon speed. Spending an extra tenth of a second or so to compile something is a fare trade for all the features of KDE. At least I think so.

Either way, good article. Would there be any chance that you'd include performance benchmarks of games running through wine in the upcoming installment?

Comment

We can't accurately compare these three distributions with this type of benchmarking. From this perspective, these are essentially the same distribution. With the LAME encoding tests, for example, we're running the same LAME compiled with the same compiler on the same hardware with the same libraries. The window manager doesn't even figure into the equation. We could even boot into runlevel 3 (no window manager) and get almost identical results.

First, we have to acknowledge that these are actually all the same distribution with a different default window manager. Then, if we really want to do a comparison, we must devise tests that compare common tasks between the three different environments. Timing the start-up of the X-Window server would be one accurate point of comparison.

The challenge in this testing environment would be to avoid a subjective comparison. For example, if I feel that Konsole is better than Gnome-Terminal, it's not valid unless I can identify a feature or flaw that would affect most users.

If we, as a community, came up with a list of tests we'd like to see for comparison of the three window managers, would the Phoronix team be willing to conduct them and document their results?

Maybe this can be inspiration for a future article which compares window managers and even includes some of the less popular ones: Enlightenment, WindowMaker, IceWM, FvWM, etc...

I've been happily using Kubuntu steadily for more than six months now. Before that, as a faithful Red Hat then Fedora user for years, I had already chosen KDE over Gnome.

I've tried XFCE, Enlightenment, WindowMaker, and even FvWM in the past. I have the (untested) impression that Gnome is less resource intensive than KDE and XFCE is less resource intensive than Gnome. I think I would tend to agree with most of Mr. Torvalds' controversial comments with regard to Gnome.